AV Geeks @ Hunt Library

you oh you're live jason hello everybody it's good to be live this is jason evans growth digital media librarian from nc state and welcome to av geeks at the haunt library not at the hunt library this is our 13th semester of the series which partners nc state folks with raleigh's av geeks to discuss vintage educational and classroom films so as usual skip alzheimer who will be taking over hosting duties duties as soon as i relinquish them he's the founder of av geeks and an nc state alum he has been for the last few decades collecting film made throughout the last century mostly 16 millimeter educational training and other sorts of how-to movies and does an incredible job sharing them with the world he currently houses over 36 000 such films at the av geeks archive here in raleigh and shares them as stock footage for films and exhibits research material and during public events such as this so today's theme is let's talk about air pollution and we're very excited to welcome our guest assistant university director of the southeast climate adaptation science center aranza zoo laskarine um we're delighted to have her with us today as assistant university director uh she ensures that nc state's host agreement with the usgs is being carried out responsibly and meeting the goals and objectives and their scope of work she also oversees the global change fellows program and undertakes partnership building for the southeast casc she has a broad background in environmental conservation and resource planning has worked for city county and state agencies in the west on water quality management and endangered species protection she's worked in environmental education in the south pacific islands and international climate change policy has a bachelor's from the university of california berkeley and a master's from university of oregon aranza zoo is a first generation immigrant from mexico is fluent in spanish and takes great pride in using her native language when working in puerto rico so before we get to our distinguished guest and host a reminder that over 200 of av geeks compilations are available for check out from the libraries you can also visit avgeeks.com or search for av geeks in youtube or archive.org for more so skip take it away thank you so much jason uh all right i'm gonna make you go go away goodbye we'll see you later see you in facebook all right all right so today we're gonna watch i'm excited about this because um we get to watch old films about pollution and as i was saying before i um did a show called last time we were green which i showed films from the 60s and 70s that were all about ecological concerns basically you know the issues related to air pollution noise pollution litter water pollution and a lot of the films are very uh apocalyptic basically saying that we were destroying where we were living and it seemed like there was a movement to clean that up and then something happened and so maybe we can talk about that today uh the first thing i'm going to show is going to be a film um that was made in 1958 it is uh a little segment of a film from the bell science series and it was um called unchained goddess and basically that film uh was shown on television along with the other bell science films and features dr frank baxter who is actually got a phd in english not he's not a scientist uh and they're explaining basically the climate and explaining how um the atmosphere works uh what is controlling the atmosphere what is controlling weather all these aspects of that in the course of it in in the last like 15 minutes or so they talk a little bit about how we can change we as humans can change the climate and experiments related to that and there's a kind of a cautionary little segment in there and so let's go ahead and watch that cautionary little segment that they managed to kind of get right unfortunately um here is a segment of unchained goddess even now man may be unwittingly changing the world's climate through the waste products of his civilization due to our release from factories and automobiles every year of more than six billion tons of carbon dioxide which helps air absorb heat from the sun our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer this is bad well it's been calculated a few degrees rise in the earth's temperature would melt the polar ice caps and if this happens an inland sea would fill a good portion of the mississippi valley tourists and glass bottom boats will be viewing the ground towers of miami through 150 feet of tropical water all right so that's a short little film um a little segment the whole film itself is about an hour and it ran on national television and uh it also was distributed to schools and why am i unable to well hold on i'm trying to get you access here sorry to zoom i was just complaining also about zoom issues um see if i can get you spotlighted so we can actually see you and we can talk about this um all right let's see if that works okay um hopefully that worked all right so what is it um so this is 1958. skip i'm just completely like flumex that like you know this was put together in 1958 i mean that's so early to be talking about i mean in such a public way about um about humans control of the atmosphere and of of climate um you know in 1958 you know around the 50s is when we begin to start to monitor uh emissions in in a real way uh with the observatories in manila and so i was just really just amazed um by sort of the the excellent sort of science communication um done by uh what what's his name mr research you know the this you know elegant you know respectable older white man talking about the science uh and that humans can actually be modifying uh the climate system um so it's just amazing to me that this is happening in 1958 um and that it would be aired in prime time tv um you know and i i i think a lot about sort of uh you know in the age of sort of misinformation you know the role that this this this documentary um plays in society at that time um so i don't know if you can talk a little bit about that skip um well as i was saying like when when they talked about um air pollution they talked about what you could see they talked about smog and the the dangerous aspects of smog then it changed a little bit where they were talking about sulfur dioxide and acid rain and the the negative impact on trees and things like that but it was all about things that you could see and things that you could smell and not about carbon dioxide and so it's interesting that's what kind of struck me about this that's right abby but they also just got the science um down really well and really succinctly i mean the fact that they showed sea level rise and they did that animation you know of the gulf of mexico in the southeastern u.s it is so spot on and then you know the glaciers melting i mean those are those are two of the important criterias we we continue to monitor today you know surface air temperature and sea level rise um and and they just they just hit on it you know in the late 50s um and so you know i always think like you know well what happened since that time um and how are we still debating in some circles uh human-caused claims yeah and so what what i think is interesting is that there was also kind of this thing i guess was happening in the 80s and 90s talking about the ozone layer and about the fact that there were these hidden chem these chemicals that were eating away at the ozone layer and trying to tell people like okay you know what ozone layer is actually really important as far as ultraviolet violet rays and things like that but even then it was still i saw i would read about like oh well we're trying to limit like corporations and industry lobbyists are trying to not make carbon dioxide something that they have to regulate because oh well we all we breathe out carbon dioxide so it can't be bad for us right um it can't be bad for the environment because we you know we created ourselves and that's a natural thing right and desperately trying not to have that regulation take place yeah even to today i think so i just saw with the carbon tax uh thing was trying they were trying to make it unconstitutional or declare unconstitutional in canada it was actually declared that it was constitutional that's right that's right it you know and i think it was only in 2007 you know you know not that just a few years ago that we had the supreme court case massachusetts versus epa where you know massachusetts finally asked you know is carbon dioxide a pollutant or not in order for us to begin to regulate it and do something about it um and and the supreme court said yes yes if the epa cannot prove that it's not a pollutant then it's a pollutant oh interesting and so um so there we are and that was in 2007. right all right so we're going to go back again in time uh 12 years after the uh unchained goddess came out uh 1970 um and you were kind of interested in what what year specifically so we can talk about why this but this is uh the american steel industry basically saying hey we're not bad we're not bad for the environment look at all the awesome things that we've done uh so here is uh inquest of cleaner air pollution of the air we breathe and the water we use is a subject of continuing concern to all of us it is a subject we cannot avoid for all of us for the fact that we live and breathe are sufferers from and contributors to pollution wherever a summer rain washes loose soil into a stream wherever fuel is burned to generate power wherever new construction disturbs the way of the land the inevitable unavoidable result is pollution about one-sixth of the total air pollution we contend with in this country can be traced to industrial processes improvement is difficult because a rapidly growing population demands an ever-increasing volume of manufactured products nevertheless progress is being made a leader and pioneer in the movement to stem the rising tide of air and water pollution is the steel industry the making of smoke was once an inseparable part of the making of iron and steel but by the start of the 20th century simple dust catchers the earliest form of air quality control were being installed on blast furnaces research and willingness to commit major resources to minimize the pollution problems of steelmaking have brought dramatic progress air is vastly cleaner around steel mills today as a result of the hundreds of millions of dollars the steel companies have spent to develop and install cleaning systems these complex and expensive facilities many of which are 99 effective in removing dust particles have brought vast improvements in the air environment of the nation's steel producing cities another major improvement has been brought about by the rapid conversion to the basic oxygen process this system permits the objectionable airborne products of the steel making process to be collected and precipitated from the air before it is returned to the atmosphere almost half of all the steel produced in the united states is made this way now and the percentage increases each year air quality control systems on the bofs and other types of steel making furnaces capture thousands of tons of particulate matter so that it never enters the air these devices are expensive to build operate and maintain they make no dollars and cents return on the investment but they provide indisputable evidence that the steel industry is doing something effective about air pollution another basic raw material of steel making is water for years now since the 1930s steel companies have been conducting research programs to develop the systems and equipment necessary to improve water quality large intake facilities are required to meet the water needs of a basic steel producing plant for every ton of finished steel produced something like 20 000 gallons are needed for cleaning and cooling purposes for example mill scale which forms on the surface of hot steel is removed with high pressure water the scale and water goes into settling pits the scale settles out and is recovered huge clarifiers trap and remove oil sludge and other potentially harmful ingredients excess heat is dissipated in large cooling towers the result is clear clean water which can be recycled back into the mill for another round or discharged into a lake or stream where more often than not it enhances water quality settling basins thickeners scale pits filters separators waste lagoons all of these have a single purpose to make american steel plants examples of one industry's efforts to help preserve our nation's waterways for all the purposes they must serve today and for generations to come the american steel industry's investment in clean air and water is rapidly approaching two billion dollars the return is not measurable in dollars and cents it is measurable in a better human environment we are proud of our progress it will continue [Music] so uh thank you steel industry for all you've done for us that's right that's right it's good yeah i wanted to kind of take it to a to a particular decade or a year um that's why i asked you about that to see sort of what was going on in the consciousness of the country um at that time and i think you said early 70s maybe or late 60s 1970 was the actual year okay supposedly yeah yeah exactly exactly so you know you have you know this this this conscientization of the country right and though you at that time period the early 70s you know silent spring uh the book by rachel carson uh uh sand county almanac by aldo leopold so you had this sort of awareness this this ethos coming about about um the necessities to have clean water and clean air and so it's interesting that the steel industry puts this forth you know this is 1970 and here we are still you know in in the second decade of the 21st century you know the steel industry you know is almost 10 responsible for the emissions worldwide emissions today you know and and so you know they talk about like you know the scrubbers and containing dust you know and of course you know there's a further understanding of the size of particulate matter right so uh they you know in those days they might have been thinking about a certain level size of particulate matter but as we've evolved in the sort of the air chemistry um you know we've we've delved even into finer as you say the unseen you know the heavy metals and whatnot that still continue um to exude from the steel plants yeah um so what other industry you said uh steel industry 10 what are other ones that have those double digits that are big industrial yeah so there's transportation sector so if you just if you just put together the transportation sector the cement industry the steel industry and the uh sort of the uh the heat generation plants that together is probably in the range of 75 to 80 percent of the emissions right there so still a significant amount you know and we still talk about carbon caption storage as a potential to capture that carbon before being released but you know that's when markets come in and cost benefits come in in terms of the cost you know there's no way that we could have developed our cities and grown our cities without steel i mean that's just been an essential building block but but it's come at the expense of our air and our water right right interesting um so this this last one we're going to watch um is it's a film that's about pollution and it's made for school kids and it kind of explains what are the what are the pollutants uh it's called it's an ill wind and it's it's pretty entertaining it's animated um and so we can watch that and then we'll talk more about that about the film and then in general and also if you have questions uh for our expert please put them in the comments and would love to get some questions going so here we go let me do a pin [Music] [Applause] um expedition all set for takeoff tomorrow [Music] morning [Music] me [Music] so [Music] x-13 reports it has sight of the promising planet stay tuned for further bulletins [Music] are we in orbit mr sludge yes captain america excellent dispatch the survey team for three planetary cycles it's been a long trip and i hope it will prove worth the effort doctor your report please this is the planet we are in orbit around there are many things about this planet which are ideal for our purposes the temperature range the gravity and the soil could easily support our food plants the major stumbling block is the atmosphere the atmosphere consists of a volume of 78 nitrogen 21 percent oxygen a little less than one percent argon krypton water vapor carbon dioxide neon and xenon and trace amounts of carbon monoxide ozone methane sulfur dioxide oxides of nitrogen carbon clay particles bacteria and viruses lead zinc iron copper manganese nickel tin titanium vanadium and so forth but that's terrible those substances that you say exist in only trace amounts are essential for our survival true enough but there is a most encouraging phenomenon a subtle but steady change is taking place in the atmosphere if this change continues at its present rate we can assume in some areas of this planet the air will be quite suitable for our survival amazing what is causing this change difficult so it may be to believe it is the dominant life form who is causing it he is deliberately increasing the content of these substances in his atmosphere even though they are toxic to him and to most of his fellow life forms i can't believe that it's true to power his machines he burns tremendous amounts of fuel and releases the partly burned waste into the atmosphere enriching it with lead essential to the prevention of over activity in our species iron which we need for bone development copper for our nervous system and vanadium to toughen our skin zinc to protect it and sulfur for our digestive system the dominant life form has found many ways to enrich the atmosphere near the surface and in the upper atmosphere this particular area of the planet seems to be the worst offender but other areas are catching up how has he existed if he poisons his own atmosphere a captain uh let me explain something about the dynamics of this planet's atmosphere it is in constant motion due to several factors surface conditions such as irregular distribution of land and water and their diverse responses to solar radiation or the lack of them the ability of the surface to absorb heat and greater heating at the equator than at the poles these factors cause widely differing local states of the weather as they call it circulations are superimposed on other circulations creating complex movements beyond description when air is lifted and cooled clouds form and they behave differently from time to time and place to place depending upon what pollution is in the air they can be made to rain more easily and quickly or not to rain at all to grow bigger dissipate and so forth it's a complex and messy system it appears that the dominant life form is not generally aware that the pollution they add could radically change the distribution of rainfall upon which their society is totally dependent was the year once unpolluted no atmospheric pollutants have always been present in this planet's history but the atmosphere has an excellent cleaning process to remove particle contamination one is through rain water vapor in the atmosphere tends to collect on pollution particles to form droplets and crystals by the time a raindrop falls it is made up of the million little cloud drops when rain or snow results the falling precipitation catches additional particles and carries them back down to the surface some particles are blown against impediments by winds and filtered out other particles gather together until big enough to fall eventually to the surface however the dominant life form has discovered more and more uses for power obtained from fuel burning and he is in many places putting pollutants into the air faster than the atmosphere can clean them out doesn't he realize he is doing this i mean he seems quite sophisticated technologically he seems to ignore it not only does he release or zeal's pollutants into the atmosphere but doesn't take advantage of the atmosphere's natural ability to carry away pollutants what do you mean i show you in most parts of this planet the higher the altitude the cooler the atmosphere warm air from the surface rises vetted pollutants stronger winds aloft carry the pollutants away from their source and they return eventually to the surface on other occasions and in some places there is an inversion the hot air which is now above keeps the air below from rising pollutants stay as they are yet it is in areas like this that he built some of his most heavily industrialized and vehicle-infested cities because he likes sunshine he seeks out these places where sinking air prevents clouds and forms inversions trapping contaminants this sinking air keeps rain from forming and the air doesn't get cleaned incredible vades there's more also he is keeping pollutants near the surface by blocking out the heat with artificial fog or smog so that the earth can't be formed to help mix the air and disperse the pollutants he is actually changing local weather patterns in certain parts of his planet by adding water vapor or by direct energy release i have prepared a small demonstration when we cool the air containing water vapor a fog fargo cloud forms but it is relatively transparent and has only a few droplets now let us see what happens when we introduce some pollution into the chamber and the air is cooled see the vapor collects around the particles forming millions of tiny droplets making the cloud or fog more dense and longer lasting what are the prospects for us what are the chances that we can inhabit this planet captain my unit has prepared a projection into the future of this planet based on current trends proceed with your report lieutenant the atmosphere of this planet though large is finite there is a fixed amount of air the dominant species is introducing more and more pollutants than ever in his history and as a demand for power spreads around the planet the planet will become more and more livable for us and less livable for the indigenous life forms plants in contact with pollutants like sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen suffer and die one damage to the higher species including the dominant one is inevitable pollution in the upper atmosphere is more persistent since clouds and precipitation do not occur there to remove the pollutants this layer affects the flow of energy to and from the planet and may alter the overall temperature of the planet that's the long-range picture but short-range lethal conditions may arise if the dominant life form continues to ignore the meteorology of his planet and the atmosphere's ability to cleanse itself of pollutants at some given time and place the removal transportation and dispersion capacity of the atmosphere drops due to high pressure calm or on extreme heat inversions while the pollution rate remains high or increases when this happens and with greater and greater frequency the pollution rate curve comes closer to the removal rate curve plants may have their entire life cycle interrupted or large population areas may suffer as has already happened more than once we are led to the conclusion that this planet will soon be suited for our habitation and unsuited for that of its present occupants a captain the command ship is on the line i'll be right there smear yes command captain merck here merc the x-27 and the x-73 have both located possible planets you must decide whether or not your discovery is a suitable site so that we can concentrate our efforts if you tell us it is we'll send you half the expedition to assist you if not you must go and assist the x-73 let us know as soon as possible well we've heard the evidence is anyone here opposed to calling this planet a suitable site in the near future i am why is that because of a factor no survey but my owners dwelt on we have presented this planet's dominant species as a foolish race spent on self-destruction but there is another sight to him he's not blind there's a widespread concern throughout this planet his engineers are working to reduce the rate at which materials are injected into the atmosphere there are scientists called meteorologists among those fighting to convince others to make sensible use of the atmosphere's inherent cleaning ability and pointing out that the atmosphere's self-cleaning abilities are limited and that pollution may affect the weather observe now this electric broadcast of one of these scientists how do you feel about the air pollution thing is it as bad as everyone would have us had people when they built plants or when they located cities thought a little bit about the relationship between what they were going to do and the ability of the environment to cope with it or to maintain itself in some reasonable condition with people who are doing the things they're doing they could have avoided a lot of this you know the atmosphere has only a finite ability to absorb the material we put into it and as we keep increasing the amount of pollution in the atmosphere we don't increase the ability of the atmosphere to remove the pollution and we've reached a point in the atmosphere now where we're adding pollution at a rate about equal to or perhaps in some locations and it's sometimes greater than the rate at which the atmosphere can either remove it and disperse it or actually remove it from the air through rain and clouds very interesting indeed they are sophisticated technologically they are not ignoring their problems and seem to have a means to solve them they do these scientists know a great deal about the atmosphere the atmosphere is a thermodynamic engine driven by the sun and by the difference between temperature between the equator and the poles well now if you suspend a lot of dust or create a lot of artificial clouds some in some region in the atmosphere the result will be a change in the distribution of energy over the surface of the earth both the energy coming in from the sun and the energy going out in the form of radiation through the atmosphere and again we aren't in a position right now our numerical models our theories are not good enough to tell us exactly what the consequences of this would be yes time is running out well we have all the data in our computer let's ask for a readout on its decision suggest you join x73 for in-depth exploration of planet they have discovered but return here after five planetary cycles to check on developments and fate of this planet for possible future colonization gentlemen we have the decision prepare now to join the x-73 i hope our next visit here will prove rewarding [Music] [Music] [Music] so so uh boy skip i i just that one just topped it off yeah uh and so the uh in case some of you that are watching are wondering the the guy who did the voices is roger bowen roger bowen was in the movie mash he played henry blake uh and he was in a bunch of other things he was a character actor but um also he was a conquering race of aliens that wanted to populate our planet um and i love that they're sludge aliens uh and now you know of these dirty aliens that can inhabit our polluted planet um it was so brilliant um so uh you know back then so that was it actually was released in 71 i saw i i had seen something else that said that it was released in 77 and i realized in watching it that the copyright was 1771. so not you know like a year after inquest of cleaner air and water um so you know there they're talking about models and models of pollutants and the ability for the atmosphere to absorb pollutants yeah yeah i thought it was so interesting that the two currents that i picked up on this film was that you know um yes that that the earth the pla you know planet earth does have the capacity right to sort of cleanse itself and renew itself that there's a certain degree of pollutants you know naturally right volcanoes and wildfires but that humans have exceeded the capacity or sometimes we call it the caring capacity um but that humans have gone beyond that the earth's natural ability to sort of be in balance um so i thought that was yeah such an interesting thing about the film and also stating that you know yes we do have human civilization and there will be certain you know pollution associated with our activities but if we're able to plan and have scientists they can help us curb those pollutants so i mean there were so many angles to this film you know there's the angle of morality you know that you know how can humans you know they're these you know high thinking evolved sentient beings how do they not know they're destroying you know their own planet you know there is no planet b um on the other hand there was this like current you know because it's funded by the ams and by the national science foundation right you got to think about who's who's behind the film and so my sense is also that it's it's kind of a promo for science too oh definitely definitely yeah yeah um so who was the the the uh who would have been or what i'm trying to figure out how to phrase this question so that this was american meteorologists um that put out this uh film were they the ones that were doing this and compiling this data and who are the scientists that are compiling and talking about this now is it still meteorologists or is it someone else yeah it's it's everybody everybody on board because you know i sort of the basic physics of what's happening with earth's climate you know has been known since really well documented you know going back to the late you know 19th century but but the actual sort of state of the situation we've known since the late 70s and nothing dramatically has has changed except now we're in refinement you know we're in refinement uh and more clarity using the models um but we've also gotten into sort of the compounding effects of everything right um and so there's a whole bevy of organizations primarily federal agencies um that are involved with the collection of all this information right from nasa to noaa to epa to um well the american meteorology association society is is a professional association um made up of members and they promote these conferences where they release all the new and best uh data and publications every year um but yeah it's it's it's a huge baby of of organizations collecting data and then trying to figure out how those pieces are now beginning to interact with one another and so that is a really evolving um area of science fascinating yeah you mentioned nasa i was doing a project where i was digitizing a bunch of stuff for different nasa space centers and i got to visit goddard which is kind of right outside of dc and they showed me i mean i'm sure it's antiquated now but they had this model of the earth that was specifically showing everything that was happening atmospherically at that time so everything like you would see here's where all the forest fires are across the globe and yeah there was like whenever the satellites would gather that data they would compile it and add it and they'd say well here is where there's a sandstorm and then that's how it's going to make its way to the united states yeah even it's a sense that there's this there's so much that's happening in on the globe and it's all affecting other things exactly that's exactly right exactly right what happens in the sahara affects what happens with our hurricane season um yeah uh yeah it's just it's just fascinating um and um and and i wonder skip if you could tell us a little bit about it i mean i love the animations you know what can you tell us about this time period of conveying you know the ominous music at the end you know the sun kind of eerily you know this log but the music and and the animations maybe were very telling of its time well yeah so that was you know during the early 70s and so that's when there was a lot of talk about ecology and specifically talking about how we were we were doomed we what we were doing if we didn't straighten up this is going to be a bad situation so much so that i have a film that was made for uh civil defense and for fema that was called you can survive pollution and it is this very it's really scary because it basically has this guy walking around or there's nothing there's no birds there's nothing and basically saying like well this is the world that we created uh because of pollution that's right that's right so it was very doomsday oriented that's right and silent spring you know really captures that you know silence the silence of birds right no more birds in the neighborhoods um yeah and you know skip i you know is someone who thinks a lot about communication of science um and you know and and i love the medium of film and now we use video a lot short video in our work and science and i'm just thinking you know what so what happened you know what happened in these time periods when we were sounding the alarms you know and here we are you know in the 21st century and we're still at a standstill to some degree on some things now granted the clean air act the clean water act tremendous benefits to society you know i grew up in los angeles where you know in the eight seventies and eighties where you know you just you couldn't deep you know you couldn't take a deep breath it hurt so much you know and certainly the l.a basin is now much much cleaner um but you know so i wonder you know there's this really brilliant piece the new york times called losing earth by nathaniel rich in which he talks about that time period of 78 to 88 where we had this window of opportunity you know sort of this momentum building with the ecology of movement of the 70s and then what we know about physics of climate science and we had this window to act and everybody seemed to be on board right even the oil companies were like getting ready to prepare for um legislation you know to curb emissions at that time you know and then politics got so enmeshed you know with uh the the bush administrations and the clamping down of science you know the the muslin of people like jim hansen and things like that and you know so yeah so i i always struggle you know with the opportunities that we had um in certain time periods to actually take really robust action um and you know and now you know i see the biden administration you know saying we're going to embed climate policy and climate action into every cabinet of the federal government right from transportation to department of commerce department of interior we need climate to be considered at all levels and all activities um so that that's a huge movement that i haven't you know that we haven't seen before whether that materializes or not that's another question right um so i mean the fact that you have uh insurance companies and you have um entities who are looking at this data as climate change data and saying well we can't insure you for that we're not going to insure your your houses on the beach because we know how prone they are to hurricanes or we know that the water is rising i mean are those factors that will change industry and will change us because we don't have a choice that's right that's right i mean i don't think that we could move fast enough to keep pace right now with sea level rise especially in the um peninsular florida um you know the gulf states um yeah and i think there was something in the news recently about the outer banks you know industry you know the insurance industry saying look wait a minute you know you're gonna flush out the system because the just the amount of extreme events up and coming and on the horizon now causing more of these billion dollar disasters you know that's what um nasa now tracks noah and attracts these billion dollar events and they're just proliferating throughout the southeast region in particular is a big hot spot um so i think i think just the markets uh the insurance industries um they've been on board i wish they would be more vocal about it um i wish they would their their that that angle would get more into the muse um yeah and also so something i've been reading is the speculation that oil companies might start creating technologies to capture carbon have you have you read this about the idea is that they would be using some of their technologies to like pull that carbon out and then they would charge governments for it or they would figure out ways to monetize that yeah yeah there has been yes there has been a lot of talk of that i i don't know how that's really a long-term strategy i don't think it poises us to meet uh the requirements under the paris agreement uh you know i think all indications point that all the models have even maybe perhaps we've been underestimating the impacts of of of climate change and that to keep us really below that two degree of warming um to the end of the century is is going to be really really difficult so i i just don't see it happening i think that we have some other i you can see the new emerging technologies really take over the market things like electric vehicles um there's going to be a huge infusion of um from the current uh cobit relief bill into public transportation so you know i think really moving us out of cars and i think that the car industry in particular just sees the writing on the wall so you have companies like gm making statements like yeah yeah we're going to be begin complying um with the curbing of gasoline and so where do we sit when it comes to uh other countries in regards to climate change like you know we around the 70s we were like we're number one we're the best we have the best technology blah blah blah maybe that's not the case now i think you know i think we've we lost a lot a lot of time um in the last administration um you know and to get the wheels back up and running takes also a lot of time um you know there's been a massive uh massive empty now to the federal workforce you know and pl and really important agencies like you know the epa and department of interior and uh and noaa and so to get back up and running i mean i think that's one of the reasons too that i think the biden administration said i'm gonna tap all those experts that were really pushing for climate um emissions control from the obama administration i'm going to get them in those really high level cabinet positions because they could just get up and running um because of the lost time um i mean absolutely we're a leader in terms of our policies and in terms of our technology innovation um and we can certainly use that to our advantage um but to be a leader in that sense but i think that we we defaulted on that responsibility i'm putting in the comments uh any questions for you um because you uh so what is uh what are things that that you do in your position um i'm sure you have conferences about this but what are the things that you you do related to that yeah yeah so we you know we are we are concerned with the ecosystems right now so wa fish wildlife water uh forest systems uh grassland systems all the sort of ecosystems we're thinking about how those systems are going to be responding to climate change in the next few decades um and and what are the what are the what's the climate data information that managers need to basically make planning decisions into the future um so do we need to start preparing um a forest system to become something else because those forests are now intolerable to the rising temperatures uh what do we need to do to prepare species to be able to move and migrate uh you know and one of the tools we use to communicate that is you know the ecosystem services the fact that all these ecosystems the natural world from the from these movies provide the ability to mitigate climate right the fact that canopy tree canopies provide shade and cooling effects and so we are also really tasked with trying to convey the importance of um the services that are provided by ecosystems and what happens if we lose those what happens to the ability of human communities and other species to adapt um so one of the one of the things we're really worried about is in the in particular in the carolinas and other parts of the southeast are rising uh summer temperatures above 95 degrees and especially warming nights so all of us all species need the ability to cool at night but now the southeast is rising in those nighttime temperatures and we're not able to cool ourselves down so that's that poses real important questions about like the agricultural industry the farm workers um how do we move that product to market um so those are the things that were that we're concerned about and studied but also equipping um people on the ground to be able to have the information they need to make those decisions nice all right i'm gonna quickly go to another computer and see if anybody on facebook has any questions okay sorry that's fine all right that's what happens when you have multiple computers um so we we talked about a lot of serious stuff here is there i don't know is there a thing since it's friday and it's the end of the day something that we can look forward to there's is there any even the slightest glimpse of hope in some regards oh absolutely absolutely um you know so many young people um the students at nc state you know are so passionate about all these topics and what i say to them is any field you go into you'll find a way to intersect with helping the climate whether it's in business whether it's an insurance uh whether it's in ecology or the humanities there's always some way and i you know i just never give up on the ability of human ingenuity um and we we're already seeing that and we know that we can adapt quite quickly we can retool we can shift technologies and i think that there is a lot of hope um in changing um the aspects that fuel our economy um to think about ways that that don't negatively affect uh the climate system nice um so here's a fantasy thing so if the giant volcanoes in yosemite explode and there's suddenly you know like two years of darkness because of all the sun yeah will that positively impact us no no it's it's true they they you can see this in the graphs that you know pinatubo um the philippines um did cause a cooling and and this gets into this other topic called geoengineering right can we do something to the earth's atmosphere to help cool it uh to help prevent those temperatures from rising and help continue that kick in of those feedback loops right you know as the planet warms the glaciers melt the sea the seas rise um yeah absolutely yes um and in fact you know uh the southeast region of all the united states has been the slowest warming part of the united states and you know scientists have been trying to figure out why why is the southeast not been warming as fast as new england or you know the northern um states and some people posit that it's you know the canopy cover because the canopy cover in the southeast um is able to you know absorb some of that through you know vocs volatile organic compounds um so yes we would need probably a lot of volcanoes but then again you know there are those you know the the pollutants from those volcanoes are not consequential to humans i'm not wishing for volcanoes to completely shut down air travel and all that that's exactly right and in fact right now wildfires is a big concern as an air pollutant big massive air pollutant to human health um and we've seen a lot of those wildfires increase in the west um we did have one question here um is there a finite point of no return and have we passed it ah that's such a big question to answer that one um yeah that's that's a huge that's a huge i mean you know as i say that this you know this is our only there is no planet b this is the planet we have um and i think that if we work as quickly as we can um you know there's a lot of possibility um of maintaining um habitable earth um so i you know never give up hope um there's so much to do there's already a lot happening already um that's that's a positive nice nice we do not want the sludge people sludge aliens to come inhabit our planet that was that was so good and i yeah and i loved i love that piece of morality in there you know i think a lot of people right now climate scientists say you know i'm done with the science the science is there it's indisputable right now we just have to put forth a moral argument on doing something about climate change uh and uh that's so absolutely true nice uh jason is is with us and he's gonna um kind of talk about what's coming up next i guess i am here and i can't wait to tell you about what's coming next well first of all thank you aranza zoo and skip what um i'm thank you so much for the glimmers of hope there especially at the end that was important uh but what a great conversation um so couple reminders remember to visit avgeeks.com for more info and check out uh av geeks compilations um you can do that if you are making the trek to the libraries safely with your mask on and not eating inside um or if you just want to use the internet like you've gotten so good at over the last 12 and a half months do that too uh our next show is friday april 16th at 3 p.m with jenny campbell who's the director of the undergraduate zoology program at an at nc state in the department in the department of biological sciences we haven't nailed down a name for that one yet because we have so many cool opportunities well that's the thing is like we just did an animals one and then she's good at animals so i'm trying to find like the sweet spot and not duplicate what i've already done so yeah she speaks on she speaks on a ton of stuff and jenny and aranza zoo both are faculty members who like ask their students to make cool media projects so they're also into all this all the time so it's really cool to have both of them um but yeah but do come and see us again on the 16th of april that'll be i believe our final show of the semester too which means we're gonna have to start having meetings so that we can coerce you into doing this again skip i don't know man okay definitely if you keep the experts coming we've had such good experts um and it's always so i always learn something so um thank you so much yes you do such a great job of finding these these um vintage pieces you know and i think that they would be so helpful to us now to resurrect these and bring them back and study them um i think there's a lot of really good lessons in there right yep that's what i try to do so thank you so much everybody everybody have a good uh weekend and we will see you everybody soon you